Equilibrium: A Black Sea Vignette AAR

Fighting an American Heavy Team and...not winning, but certainly not losing either!

Reminder: Click on images for larger resolution

Welcome to the first bloody Combat Mission AAR ready-made for a blog that was meant for them! Apologies for that delay, there's just too many good games out there and so little time to actually play them. Here is a vignette from a recently concluded Black Sea PBEM against Gardar, a member over at the battlefront forums and a fairly regular opponent of mine. We had been playing a huge PBEM on one of Zveroboy1's excellent maps, which you can find here. I was defending as the Russians, he was attacking as the Americans in a Huge QB. Unfortunately I was a dope and forgot to add objectives, making this more of an academic exercise (this has now been fixed).

We join the left flank of a two-company large task force with assorted supporting elements. Their defensive line straddles a highway out to several kilometres, incorporating a village into their defensive perimeter. It is about 30 minutes into the battle and a forward observation post, manned by the battalion mortar's FO, report multiple contacts moving through open ground to our front. It appears to be a company sized unit of Abrams and Bradleys with miscellaneous elements. Interestingly, the formation moves with the Bradleys forward but is otherwise well spaced and moving at a cautious pace.

Earlier, a forward deployed platoon was forced to escape and evade on foot after suffering from the attentions of heavy indirect and direct fires. They did their job however, forcing the commitment of main combat elements after bloodying some scouts and ascertaining the enemy's formation. This revealed to me I was fighting an American heavy unit and gave me some time to think about likely courses of action. The enemy shifted their considerable indirect fire support onto the village itself, which includes some form of fixed-wing air support.

The aftermath of the earlier phase of the battle, two BMPs burn and a disabled third was abandoned.

The terrain is sufficiently complex that an intelligent attacker could feasibly prosecute an attack with a heavy, medium, or light force. However, I expected a medium or heavy formation to be the most likely and therefore planned accordingly. The left flank was anchored on two sizable pieces of woodland, too thick to allow the mass movement of vehicles into or through of them. This funneled any attempt to outflank the village through this terrain into two narrow channels of farmland, across which I have strung an obstacle belt. A small gap has been left in the obstacle belt to facilitate a counter-attack, should the opportunity arise.

So I've identified two likely courses of action based on what the observer reports. Having not taken any indirect fire on the edges of the forest and with contact imminent, the dismounts have now moved forward to take up their positions in foxholes. Attached to the company is a single AT-14 launcher which moves forward with them. Deployed on the left in hide positions to avoid the attention of drones is the company team's tank platoon, reinforced with a Krizantema tank destroyer. The 3rd rifle platoon currently forms the reserve but will soon be ordered to reinforce the position. The enemy appears to be heading towards the wire-belt, the narrowest point. The tanks are summoned to the company command post to be briefed on the contacts directly from him.

So, what is my scheme? As usual with open terrain, which always seems so devoid of cover, there is deceptively quite a lot of it. The XO, mounted in the command BMP, shall be managing a little ambush in tandem with the tank platoon and BMPs from one of the rifle platoons. The plan is simple, filter through dead ground into battle positions and engage the enemy with as many assets at once and for as little time as possible. The idea here is to give the numerically superior enemy armor sensory overload with as many laser warnings at once. I have the edge thanks to command and control: my vehicles know what to expect and where to look, his currently do not. Below you can see my scheme and an inset of the terrain that I selected to establish a BP from.

The initial engagement

The tanks are briefed at the CP and move off through dead ground to their intended BP. It appears to be going smoothly when the second tank, bobbing over a small rise, identifies and destroys an enemy Bradley - an absolutely cracking shot. However, this success is an albatross around my neck, as its premature and unexpected. The entire platoon isn't yet in position and the enemy now knows something is up, he reacts accordingly and swiftly, deploying a thick wall of defensive smoke from the entirety of his formation. 

View from one of the dismounts positions, thick smoke begins to build from their defensive smoke.

Its a poor spot of luck for myself but the best laid plans often go awry. Luckily, the radar-equipped Krizantema is able to track the movement of the enemy behind the smoke screen and it appears my opponent is not making any further radical movements asides from falling back a few dozen meters. A tense stand-off results as we wait for the smoke to clear. As it does so, the vehicles are ordered to move forward back into hull-downs and the much-delayed fireworks begin. I still have the advantage of prior intel but now I am fighting an alert enemy with a superior vehicle, it's a risk. 

The dismounted ATGM opens up the engagement, arcing a shot that destroys a second Bradley. It promptly belly-crawls away to an alternate foxhole, chased by MPAT that lightly wounds a few collateral riflemen huddling in their fighting positions. 

The enemy returns the favour when an Abrams destroys a BMP-3 that was in the process of laying on another Bradley. It explodes with the typical ferocity of such vehicles.

The offending Abrams draws attention from a T90AM and the tank destroyer. Curiously, the T90 elects to fire a HEAT-T round, which is defeated by the APS, which also managed to defeat the tandem-fired AT15.

The T90AM likewise defeats return fire thanks to its turret's explosive reactive armor. The first engagement is largely indecisive but edges in my favour, with the enemy being two Bradleys down, one of which I strongly suspected was still mounted at the time.

All the advantages of command and control, intel and terrain that prompted and decision to fight from this position are now no longer valid. The enemy is now clearly aware that he is fighting multiple armoured vehicles and has likely identified them all. He is also aware, or at the very least should strongly suspect, that the forests are lined with dismounted fighting positions. The equipping of APS was a rude and unexpected shock and demonstrates just how greatly it increases the survivability of vehicles from multiple threats. The choice by one of my errant tank commanders to order a HEAT round be sent at an Abrams was equally frustrating - frankly nonsensical unless they had been laying on a Bradley first - but this is typical friction of combat. It is now time to quit this position before my opponent can gather himself.

The XO, surviving BMPs and the tank destroyer remain behind in the BP to continue to 'fix' the enemy formation as best as possible and to cover the retreat of the tanks in case he presses forward to gain line of sight into the dead ground. As the T90s pull back the lead tank - who already has a Bradley kill to his name - cracks out yet another excellent shot, destroying a second Bradley. The enemy has now lost three Bradleys. The BMP-3Ms engage with a combination of ATGMs (defeated by APS) and their automatic weapons, ineffectively. An Abrams responds by destroying a second BMP before it can pull back into the reverse slope. The XO and Krizantema play a dangerous game of whack-a-mole over the following minutes, keeping the enemy's eyes fixed on them. It has some success initially with the tandem-firing missiles finally defeating an Abrams's APS and destroying it. However, at this range hull-down can only protect you for so long and both vehicles are destroyed in turn, the XO engulfed in the catastrophic explosion of his vehicle.

Gardar appears keen to sit and fight it out. The inaction is definitely curious but I want to take full advantage of it.

Shifting left

It is therefore time to use the gap in the minefield for its intended purpose. There is once again excellent, gently sloping terrain that makes for a covered approach and a good fighting position. The enemy's formation has now run up one another and lacks depth or effective spacing, so I had high hopes I could deploy a full platoon on his flank and destroy a handful of vehicles before he could effectively react.

Although the Krizantema is ultimately destroyed, the enemy remains fixed and inactive, happy to trade fire on my terms, rather than maneuver or pull back to arm's reach. This allows the AT-14 team, having repositioned a foxhole over, to re-engage with good effect: destroying a Bradley and an Abrams in a single minute. The team, now black on ammo, is eviscerated by return fire before it can once again displace.

All this appears to be shaping the flank attack for considerable success but yet again the CM Gods reach out and humble me. Just as the second tank in the T90 platoon begins to transit the gap...it bogs. A dilemma presents itself, do I preserve concentration of force, pause the lead tank in a hasty position to cover the other two tanks so they can all move into position at once, or do I order the one tank to plunge forward to the hull-down position and begin engaging at once lest I lose the element of surprise?

I pick the former option and it costs me in the long run. The T90 promptly announces to the world its arrival on my enemy's flank by destroying some form of HMMWV that was reversing through the cornfield. This finally wakes Gardar up from his catatonic state, and he reacts decisively. A platoon-sized element of Abrams plunges forward towards the obstacle gap while another redeploys to engage the T90. The lead tank is catastrophically destroyed just as the trailing two exit the gap and head for the intended BP; they make it unscathed but are now fighting an alert enemy. The hull-down position is now a trap for them.

The enemy plunges on

The Recovery

At this point I'm in dire straits, an enemy is advancing frontally and I have no anti-tank weapons greater than RPGs and barrel-launched ATGMs, and my flank has been reduced to two T90s huddling in cover. Nevertheless, in for a penny, in for a pound: the infantry are ordered to unmask and engage the advancing Abrams and the BMPs are ordered into battle positions. A flurry of RPGs, all of which miss, is met by a salvo of MPAT fire which devastates a few fireteams. However, the volume of fire is enough to convince my opponent to fall back and engage the treeline with volleys - the surviving infantry are already egressing into the heart of the forest by that point. The T90s, meanwhile, don't need to be ordered forward as my enemy advances to destroy them, inching forward to engage them from their own battle positions. 

As the BMPs move forward to engage, the lead one halts and engages, with good effect, a scout section that appears to be guarding the opposite flank of the formation. The Bradley fires a TOW but it goes wild as its turret is peppered with 30mm fire. The BMP disengages with the hope of moving on to its assigned task. 

The other two BMPs, meanwhile, are able to move unnoticed into their assigned fighting positions, having picked their way through the heavy forest, and one manages to successfully engage an Abrams in the rear as it moves forward to strike at my pinned T90s. Though target picture is lost, I strongly suspect the Abrams is destroyed or knocked out, evening the odds for my T90s.

The BMPs success is cold comfort though as in an unprecedented tit-for-tat which sees both sides absorb rounds at point blank range, a T90 is lost. Nevertheless, the surviving T90 (the platoon leader's) boldly advances into hull down and avenges his wingman. The Abrams is able to get a shot off as it absorbs the first round, however the advantage of fighting from hull down reveals itself once again as the only victim of the exchange is the exposed 7.62, blown off by a sabot round that is fired too high.

Miscounting my Abrams and thinking that success is nigh, the T90 platoon leader presses his luck and the reserve platoon is ordered through the gap themselves to complete the flank attack. It's a premature decision, as it turns out there's a surviving Abrams who promptly destroys the final T90. 

Equilibrium...

A stalemate of sorts has settled over the battlefield at this point. My opponent is down a platoon of Abrams and has lost a platoon of Bradleys, seriously blunting his striking power. My losses, however, mirror his own. Surviving enemy dismounts have been seen filtering into the left-most woods, presumably to find and destroy my own infantry, but they are put under fire from my right platoon's BMPs and infantry, who fall back themselves shortly after. 

The reserve platoon, which was just transiting the gap in the minefield when they watched the final T90 brew up and was able, with judicious use of smoke, to reverse course and avoid any attention from the final Abrams lurking in that area. They can now be redeployed in hasty positions in the woods to cover any attempts by Gardar to breach either obstacle belt. 

The line platoons are a little worse for wear, both having suffered 13 casualties of varying severity, however they still have ample RPGs and are also moving to hasty battle positions to cover any attempt to exit beyond the wire obstacles. At this point I suspect any thought of a dramatic flank has left my opponent's mind and I believed he would shift his efforts to linking up with the other units attempting to break into the village. Instead, and surprisingly, he surrenders! 

The Bigger Picture

So why did this occur?  On the opposite flank, the village and the units arrayed in it had been more or less getting around-the-clock attention from drones, precision and general artillery strikes, and air power. The latter was largely frustrated thanks to the the taskforce's attached Tunguska and the company-level Igla teams. A very large bomb is dropped, albeit nowhere on target. The precision strikes are generally focused on the lead platoon in the village, which was tasked with covering exits from narrow paths in the forests, which had also been mined. While one BMP is destroyed, the others are able to dodge follow-up strikes by making surviviability moves every two minutes. 

Nevertheless, the casualties mount steadily from the artillery's attention and by the time Gardar picks his way through the minefields, he is fighting a broken husk of a platoon, though it still is able to inflict several losses on enemy dismounts as the fighting goes house-to-house. Tanks that were able to move through the minefield weigh in by keeping my own BMPs out of the fighting, destroying one, and the platoon's survivors are hurled back onto the next platoon in position. Things were looking grim, though the attached tank platoon and tank destroyer had already redeployed to ambush the attack as it entered into more confined terrain. 

Finally, Gardar's attempt to reinforce this attack with a second rifle platoon was also on the verge of potential disaster: it too ran into a minefield covering the front entrance to the village, and the forward deployed platoon which had been escaping and evading had, by chance, deployed in its rear to hit the dismounts and Bradleys. The stage was likely set for further fighting, but I believe frustration and delay had taken their toll on his will to prosecute the attack; despite having mauled me. Ultimately, I had three platoons heavily attrited across two companies, and a fourth completely destroyed. 

Lessons to learn?

• Take engineers; the larger the combat, the greater the likelihood of obstacle and mine belts in varying complexity and depth. Drop a rifle platoon if you must to ensure you have the tools necessary to make a situational breach.
• Don't get 'buck fever' with your precision assets; Gardar took the ever-deadly combination of Gray Eagle, artillery and air power but largely wasted it on an area that was not currently putting his men under fire. My battle positions on the left were exposed to that type of fire. Don't strike at targets simply because you can when assets are limited.
• Always assume enemy has SHORAD assets, act accordingly: attacking with aircraft in pairs, and using UAV assets to find and strike these SHORAD assets increase effectiveness of air power.
• Know when to quit, my losses became atrociously high when I overstayed my welcome in those forests, taking a beating from MPAT rounds and losing my Krizantema and final T90 to ill-judged aggression. I just had to try one more time in a situation where it made little sense to. Don't reinforce failure.
• Stay active: Move frequently, frustrate sensor-to-shooter abilities of your opponent, put down fire, maneuver, seek better ground even if it involves a retrograde movement. It sounds obvious but its always worth repeating.
•  Don't hesitate to put your scouts further ahead - make sure they take the path or can see the path your main combat formations will take.
• Do not deploy forward of an obstacle, cover the obstacle and the approaches to it: my infantry were wasted in their positions because I wanted to be clever and set up an L-shaped ambush where it wasn't rational to do so. Had I kept them further back in the woods, covering the exits of the obstacle belts, they could've engaged enemy armor at much shorter ranges. The tank platoon should've prosecuted the engagement without the infantry in that sort of terrain. 

Hope you enjoyed, until next time.